Thank you very much.
I am delighted to be here.
My name is Margaret Eaton. I am president of ABC Life Literacy Canada.
We're a national literacy organization, and our vision is that every Canadian have the literacy skills they need to live a fully engaged life at home, at work, and in their community. We're delighted to be speaking on this topic today.
As you know, a report by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, “The Business Case for Investing in Canada’s Remote Communities”, explains that improving the skills and training of Canadians is absolutely essential to helping business make the case for investing in remote and rural communities. We really couldn't agree more with that statement.
Poor and low-level literacy and essential skills are a reality throughout Canada. According to international assessments, 42% of Canadians are at low levels of literacy, meaning they have below a grade 12 level of literacy skills.
We're also witnessing dramatic changes in the labour market, with the mismatch between the skills that Canadians have and the skills they need to succeed in the workplace. In its report, “Menial No More”, the Ontario Literacy Coalition explains that skill-level requirements for jobs that were assumed to be entry level or low-skilled have increased. This change has been driven largely by technology, by the pressures of productivity, and by legislative changes to health and safety standards. We require higher digital and technical skills for almost every job.
I'm sure you've seen this. In hospitals orderlies now carry with them PDAs--personal digital assistant devices. We're seeing this in hotel chains, where the cleaning staff are now carrying PDAs with them. Even a Starbucks barista is now charged with being the person who fixes the Wi-Fi when it goes down. So we're seeing that all sorts of jobs have different kinds of technical skill requirements.
We're also entering into a time of labour shortage. It's estimated that the Ring of Fire in the James Bay lowlands of northern Ontario will require 90,000 new workers. Those workers will need a higher level of skill than many Canadians currently have. HRSDC estimates that by 2031, 77% of all jobs will need some form of post-secondary education or training.
So how do we address these new training needs, especially for remote communities? The Chamber of Commerce suggests that training needs to be more closely aligned with the unique needs of individual communities. Better aligning skills training to the economic and business opportunities in communities really means engaging business. Our best solution to this is through partnerships between government, business, and employees through workplace literacy and essential skills training. We've already heard a bit about some of the successes of that model today.
We see this happening in the diamond mines in the Northwest Territories. Both Diavik and Ekati diamond mines have successful workplace literacy and essential skills training programs that serve their largely aboriginal workforce. Their training programs include literacy and basic skills, the opportunity to attain a GED diploma, and job-specific training on equipment and systems. The program has become a model. In fact the HR director at Diavik told me that they get recruiters from Fort McMurray coming to Yellowknife to pinch some of their staff. It's that successful.
This program was funded partially by the territorial government and partially by the employer, but it also included a contribution of time from the employees. We find that this kind of partnership, with each player contributing, creates a successful, sustainable model for long-term training programs. The employee is acquiring the job-specific skills they need for their current role, but also the literacy and essential skills foundation that they can then take to any employer.
These programs also provide a great win for the employer. Our research shows that those employers who invest in workplace literacy and essential skills training experience many benefits, including lower absenteeism, higher retention of employees, better communication skills in employees, higher productivity, lower costs, lower error rates, and better health and safety standards.
In remote communities, especially those that are dependent on one large employer, the employer can truly be a fantastic provider of skills training. The workplace is an astounding place for training, because the people are already there. You've overcome some of those barriers. The person doesn't have to go home, get dinner on, find a babysitter, and then do their training. They can actually do their training where they are. The learning can be immediately attached and applied to the job they're doing, which makes for a better learning experience.
Even for small and medium-sized enterprises, we've seen models where companies join together to provide training opportunities for employees and share the costs. As we experience labour shortage, especially in remote and northern communities, employers are increasingly going to have to train the people they have. They're going to have to work with the people who are there, as we saw in the northern Saskatchewan case.
In a 2009 Ipsos Reid study, ABC Life Literacy Canada posed the question: who is responsible for improving the literacy and essential skills of Canadians? What we found was that most Canadians believe that it's up to the individual to improve their own skills, but it appears that they aren't expected to do it on their own. Four in ten Canadians believe that an individual's place of work has a role to play, but seven out of ten also believe that the government should contribute to improving adult literacy.
So what role can the federal government play? We believe that the government can play a strong role in providing leadership in incenting employers to invest in workplace literacy and essential skills. We know that employers in Canada have a poor record of training of employees. The OECD ranks Canada 13th among western nations in investment in training. We're far below the U.S. and the United Kingdom. And we know that any training dollars that are spent tend to be spent on the manager class, not on front-line workers. In those regions where there are government programs providing an incentive to employers, then employers are far more likely to provide training to that front-line worker. And we see this in highly successful programs in Manitoba, in Nova Scotia, and in Quebec.
Through a forum of federal, provincial, and territorial labour ministers, governments can encourage and incent employers to ensure that they are a part of the solution. This could include a workplace training tax credit. It could also include measures and incentives to ensure that provinces engage employers and businesses in their essential skills training models. In some provinces, the labour market agreements are used, for example, to support employers in providing literacy and essential skills training.
Innovative partnerships of government, employers, and employees can equip Canadians with the skills they need for the job they're in, and for their next job. The leadership of our federal government can help ensure that our workforce has the skills that will allow Canadian business to excel in the global economy. In that sense, increasing skills has a far-reaching economic impact for every community in our country and for our nation as a whole.
Thanks very much.